NEOBANKS OF THE WORLD
Where it’s at: For the next generation of bank users, that’s on messaging platforms
Challenging challengers the
How would I describe Zelf? Edgy. Revolutionary. So seamless and slick it’s practically invisible; a bank so disruptive that it could only have been made for teenagers, because Zelf is entirely based where they are – on messaging platforms.
Meet Zelf, a neo so disruptive it must be for Gen Zers. Hannah Duncan talks to Founder and CEO Elliot Goykhman
Proud to be app-free, it’s an instant bank for Gen Zers. And when it says instant, it means it. Opening a basic account takes a mere 30 seconds. Just pop an onboarding request to Zelf, and ‘30, 29, 28…’ done. Sending money works the same way.
Powered by banking-as-a-service platform Treezor, Zelf is so far available on WhatsApp, Viber, Telegraph and Facebook Messenger – and soon iMessage and Discord. And if you’re finding it hard to process how a bank
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TheFintechMagazine | Issue 17
can exist within a messaging system – or indeed why it would want to – then founder and CEO Elliot Goykhman says you haven’t ‘got’ how the next generation’s financial needs have already moved on. “You have to see how technology changes over time and understand how new generations of people are using it differently,” he says. “Originally, you had internet banking, then mobile banking, so now you have messenger banking.” Put like that, it’s obvious. The www.fintech.finance